Sonic the Hedgehog: Orion Lance
by TimeLordParadox
Summary: In the not too distant future the hedgehog Cinos has his world turned upside down when he finds out his life is a lie implanted by the evil Robotink to supress his true identity, Sonic. With the walls of his faked life breaking down Cinos hijacks a captured space craft and flees, now with help from his crew he intends to overthrow the tyrannical galactic empire lead by Dr Robotnik
1. Prologue

**Authors notes:** This story takes place some years after the end of the old Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons.

**Plot**

In the not too distant future the technology of the world of Mobius has greatly advanced, space ships fly between the stars, robotics and cybernetics are far advanced and the entire world and the distant worlds colonised by the Mobians are in a golden age of peace and prosperity. And it's all a lie.

Deception, corruption, control and manipulation, the young Cinos the hedgehog wakes up one morning and has his world turned upside down when he discovers that he was once a great warrior who fought the now rulers of this world, Sonic the Hedgehog was once his name, and his life as he knows it is just an invention implanted to keep the dangerous troublemaker under control.

With his faked memories slowly breaking down Cinos is dragged out of his comfortable world kicking and screaming and thrown back into reality to go on the run. But what can he do now when an entire galaxy is against him?

Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog is owned by Sega

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**Sonic the Hedgehog**

**Orion Lance**

**Written by**

**TimeLordParadox**

**(A.K.A. Ross Pickering)**

**Prologue**

The world around him was a blur, everything was coming towards him so fast he often only had a split second to react and avoid whatever he was approaching and he avoided it with such agility he was practically showing off, hopping over boulders, sliding under fallen trees and practically bashing small rocks out of his way by rolling into a ball while at high speed and smashing into them.

His legs were a blur of blue and red motion and the air in front of him as he ran was resisting so much and was so thick you could cut it with a knife yet his body could move through the air at speed like an arrow. Sonic the Hedgehog prided himself as being the fastest creature on the planet, and that was saying something. A cheetah can go fifty to sixty miles per hour, Sonic could push himself to go beyond three hundred miles per hour, faster than the speed of sound itself.

He kicked off a tree and launched himself across to another tree before launching himself back and back again the other way all the time getting higher and higher until he reached the top of the tallest tree and came to stand on a branch.

The tree he was on was on the edge of the forest and in the distance in a mass of devastation and wasteland he could see a massive city, tall smoke stacks pumping thick black smoke into the air. That was a city that 3 years ago had been converted by the evil Dr. Robotnik, it used to be a peaceful, clean place until Robotik came in his air ship and 'robotisized' the whole town and its people into cybernetic machines only to do Robotnik's bidding.

Sonic himself was part of the Freedom Fighters, a bunch of rebels lead by Princess Sally Acorn, intent on stopping Robotnik's mad desire for world domination. They had been fighting him for four years and a lot of things had changed, the Freedom Fighters had gained a lot of ground, they had so many supporters they were sure they could overthrow Robotnik and his mad desires for world domination, this long war could be over in a few weeks. A few weeks and it'll all be over, Robotnik will be brought to his knees.

Sonic himself had altered over the years, he'd grown up a lot, he was taller, a lot fitter and though still reckless and often irresponsible he was much more focused and calmer looking then his younger self who was often more bombastic.

Sonic had set out on a mission this night, he'd gotten word that his best friend, a fox named Miles Prowler or Tails by his friends had just been kidnapped by Robotnik and was being used as bait to attract the little speedster to him. No doubt because he had some new secret weapon that the mad scientist believed could defeat the fastest thing alive once and for all. Fat chance!

Sonic wasn't worried, he'd defeated Dr. Ro'butt'nik and his machines on so many occasions there was nothing Robotnik could build that Sonic could not easily destroy.

At that moment Sonic leapt off the tree branch he was standing on and hit the ground running and within seconds was inside the city, he was blasting past all Robotnik's Spybots and skuzbots and Swatbots and stuff and arrived at the entrance to a tall tower in the middle of the city.

Sonic whistled loudly to deliberately attract attention to himself "Hey, Robotnik! I'm here! What kind of doctor are you, don't you keep your appointments?"

"Laugh all you want, you irritating rodent" said a dark voice from speakers in the walls.

"Not man enough to show yourself Ro'butt'nik?" Sonic yawned "I'm here, now show me Tails and show me what scrap heap you want me to trash, I've got more important stuff to do today."

"You won't be laughing when you see what I have in store for you" Robotnik snarled, Sonic just flapped his lips and held up his right arm and flapped his fingers and thumb in a manner that imitated speech and as far as Sonic was concerned Robotnik was doing too much of it.

"SONIC!" cried the high pitched voice of the young fox Tails, who was tied up and dangling by a cable from a buzzbot, a giant, bee like robot that was flying through the air on large buzzing wings.

"Don't worry Tails" Sonic said unconcerned as he picked up a loose cobble from the floor, flipped it into the air and caught it again a few times before he took aim, then started spinning himself head over feet in a ball going faster and faster, then he came to an abrupt halt standing on his feet and launched the stone into the air, with the extra momentum added from Sonics little feat the stone impacted the buzzbot and it exploded as the stone tore straight through the metal bee. Tails began to fall to the ground but just before he hit the solid ground Sonic zoomed towards him and caught the fox. "You okay, buddy?"

The rope binding Tails' arms loosened and fell "Yeah, now that you're here I know everything will be okay."

"Ah, stop, you're embarrassing me" Sonic commented jokingly.

"You haven't won yet Sonic!" echoed the dark voice of Robotnik "and you won't win this time!"

"I've won every time, everything you've sent against me I've defeated, and I'm getting bored." Sonic said causally sticking his finger in his ear and tried to dig out some wax he'd just found in there.

"You won't get bored with this, it'll crush every bone in your body" the centre of a large platform Sonic and Tails were standing on began to slide back revealing a rising platform underneath. The platform was as big as a car park so Sonic guessed whatever it was he was to face it was going to be big, very big.

"It better be better than that lame Hedgehog seeking missile" Sonic yawned as he and Tails leapt onto a more stable floor at the edge of the massive, opening hatch.

The rising platform clicked into place and standing in the middle of it was a machine, a small machine no bigger than Sonic was. It was exactly his height, blue and made of metal. It looked almost exactly like him, a metal version of Sonic. In its stomach was what looked like a jet engine and instead of eyes it had a black visor, a visor that had two red irises that were looking directly at Sonic with dislike. Was that even possible for a machine?

"That's it?" Sonic laughed "A robot copy of me?"

"Metal Sonic is based on you in every way!" Robotnik gloated "Every battle you've had has been recorded in his data bank, every move you know, every thought, your entire mentality. It is your perfect match for speed and agility."

"All talk Robotnik, but you can't copy the original recipe to perfection" Sonic gloated.

"We'll see! Metal, take him apart, but leave him alive." Robotnik said.

"Ha! If you want this thing to fight me, it better kill me because I'm gonna keep coming." Sonic said adopting a fighting stance and got ready for an attack by this Metal Sonic.

"Sonic be careful, I don't think Robotnik is making empty threats this time" Tails warned him.

"Robotnik's threats are always empty." Sonic said and winked at his friend "Don't worry Tails, you just head back to Sally and the others, I'll send this mass of bolts to the junk heap in no time." Sonic stopped talking when he felt Metal ram into the back of him and the metal copy tossed him across the platform to the other side.

Slowly Sonic got back to his feet a little shaken "Wow, I'm surprised, that actually hurt" Sonic gloated "I'm going to have some fun playing games with this thing."

"Metal is not here to play games!" Robotnik fumed. "He is here to exterminate you!"

"I thought you wanted him to leave me alive, how can it do that if it exterminates me?" Sonic laughed getting back into fighting stance.

"Either will suit me" Robotnik snarled. Smiling mischievously Sonic took off towards Metal and Metal took off towards Sonic and they prepared to fight each other, Sonic got so close he could see the reds of his eyes and... why did his irises look like numbers and letters, an '5:59' and an 'AM', what did that mean? Suddenly '5:59' 'AM' became '6:00' 'AM' and then...

BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP, BLEEP went the alarm and the dream blacked out as the guy having the dream was snapped back to reality...

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**To Be Continued...**

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**Authors notes: **Originally this was called Sonics 7 and was supposed to be a homage to 1984 and the BBC series Blakes 7, however after a little thought on the plot I've decided to re-invent it and re-release it as something else.


	2. Cinos the Hedgehog

**Chapter One**

**Cinos the Hedgehog**

**10 years later...**

Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep! Went the sound of the alarm clock. 8:00am, he didn't want to get up but he had to, he had to go to work in the filtration plant, it was the most boring job you could think of and the most disgusting, cleaning the gunk out of the filters, not a pleasant job.

He slammed his first down on the clock and rubbed his hand through his messed up quills, he didn't want to get up he just wanted to sleep. He was just about to drift off again when suddenly, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep! Stupid snooze button.

"Okay, okay I'm getting up!" Cinos complained slamming his fist down on the clock and sat up in bed, he can't manage the hours like this, he could swear he was getting more and more tired with every day, that's every single day, all year around. He only worked it because it was well paying and his brother and sister needed money. They lived on one of the outer colonies on the inner rim of the galaxy, his sister and brother and uncle.

It was amazing that only ten years ago Egg Industries, a major manufacturer of almost everything from medicine to food, to cars and clothes, had invented a star drive and began expanding to the outer reaches of space, starting up colonies on other planets to expand the Empire. His brother and sister were fortunate enough to be the first colonists to be sent to these new places. He got communications from them every month, video diaries and stuff, unfortunately it wasn't possible to have a telephone conversation, a 'Hi how are you?' 'I'm doing fine' type of conversation due to the vast distances it took to transmit, they wouldn't hear his message for over 100 years. So communication had to be done the old fashioned way by postmen and mail boxes.

Cinos rubbed his eyes and stretched his arms, they clicked loudly. "Lights" he commanded and the automatic lights flicked on. He slipped out of bed and into a pair of dull brown boots, a dull brown shirt and a green jumper, he then stretched his head left and right and heard his neck click.

His apartment was small and consisted only of his bed, an information screen which doubled as a mirror and a couple of books, in an adjacent room were his wash facilities which consisted only of a shower, a toilet and a sink.

Cinos looked in his mirror, he was a hedgehog in his mid to late twenties with an average build, he had dull brown fur and his quills needed combing but otherwise his fur was perfectly groomed. His dark eyes were outlined by the dark rings under them from lack of sleep.

He then opened the blinds on his window and he was greeted by the view of the street outside. Off in the distance you could see tall towers, long vent stacks blowing flames and even longer smoke stacks which spurted waste gases into the atmoshpere, it was also still dark. Wait a moment, it was still night outside! Cinos looked back at his clock again, it actually read 6:00am? Why was his alarm going off for six when he was supposed to get up at eight? It was always set for eight, it was automatically set for eight by the company they couldn't wake him up 2 hours early, they were required to fulfil his rest period of eight hours. Surely there was some mistake, but for whatever reason Cinos decided he was awake now. He knew he'd never get back to sleep.

"Screen" he commanded and the screen that doubled as a mirror flipped on to show the local news channel. Nothing much was going on, productivity is up, some trouble with the outer colonies trying break free from the empire and rumours suggesting that a bunch of rebels were hiding here on Mobius though the government denies it.

Cinos was just brushing his teeth and coming out of the wash room with the intention of going back to bed for a while longer to snooze. "Screen off" he commanded, but the screen didn't turn off, at least not to its mirror counterpart, instead it just went black.

"Oh, now what's wrong!" Cinos walked over to it and whacked his hand against the wall but it didn't help, this things been going wrong for almost two weeks. Once he's got enough credits together he'll pay for someone to fix it properly.

_[Morning Cinos]_ a stream of green words said scrolling across the black screen. Okay that was weird, that usually didn't happen [_You're up early]_ more words scrolled across the screen. [_The Empire is lying to you, they are watching you, always.]_ Was this some sort of joke or something? Jokes like this were illegal and tampering with a vid screen was punishable by deportation to one of the penal colony worlds.

Cinos tried to turn off the screen by using the power button, but the screen remained stubornly on.

_[Knock, knock Cinos]_

Knock, knock, knock, Cinos nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard it. Someone was rapping on his door. Who could that be at this hour? Cautiously he walked over to the door and pressed the pad on the wall to open it up, his smooth, silver door shot upwards to reveal the dull, dark blue corridor beyond. He leaned out and looked left and right, there was no one there. Stupid kids playing 'knock a door run' or something. He was about to step back into his apartment when he noticed something at his feet, a slip of paper that must've been pushed just under his door. He knelt down and picked it up, a white envelope it looked like. He turned around and closed the door behind him and opened the envelope, his pay slip wasn't due yet and neither was a message from his family so who could this be from? And what's with the cloak and dagger stuff? Probably some stupid joke he guessed.

Cinos pulled from it a sheet of paper with a message that looked like it was hand written, but nobody hand wrote anything they just typed everything out and printed it. The handwriting was disorganised and smudged but it was clear what it was reading.

Cinos, up early I see, no need to thank us. You don't remember me but I sure remember you, you feel like there is a lot you don't understand and you sort of feel incomplete. I have some news about your family. If you want to fill in the gaps do NOT eat or drink anything when your meal arrives and meet us in corridor 7AB on the ground level. Come alone or not at all and remember, do not eat or drink anything.

We'll be waiting

-MP

Was this some stupid joke? Cinos thought again, 7AB was close to the city limits, if he was caught there he'd be sent to the correction centre. He would've dismissed it just that if not for one thing, he does feel incomplete somehow, like he's not all here like there are bits missing from him. A jigsaw someone had only half completed, that's how he felt. Then there were the bad dreams, ever since he was seventeen he would wake up from a bad dream, a dream where he was beaten up, drowned and chocked in total darkness, he would wake up in a cold sweat and once or twice in his youth he actually wet his bed.

Corridor 7AB was not that far away, if he was quick he could make it there and back before his work shift started, but do not eat or drink? He doubted he could skip breakfast and survive the day until lunch but they seem to insist on it. He could get there, find out what they wanted and catch a bite on the way to work he guessed, if he ran.

It didn't take him long to get there, oddly it never took him long to get anywhere when he ran. He always seemed to get to his destination in a matter of minutes, even if it takes an hour to walk, he's there within minutes just by running, it was weird.

While he ran he looked up at the sky. Hanging in the air like a suspended second moon was the Egg Sphere, a large spherical space station the size of a moon that was slightly bulged at the top making it look like a giant egg, it had what looked like a bristly moustache and large eyes that looked down at the world, apparently it was modelled after a great scientist who brought peace to the world. The giant space station was also known as the Scrap Brain but the rebels call it the Death Egg because it spelt the end for the rebels on Mobius by monitored all communications coming and going from the planet through the interweb so one group of terrorists could not interact with another on the colony worlds. It also filtered searches on the interweb searching for key words that indicated a possible terrorist attack and even went as far as to automatically shut down any site or user that's accused of performing 'illegal' activities that resulted in a financial loss to the company.

Within no time Cinos was outside corridor 7AB, a white corridor of very basic architecture. He saw a few people walking around, two foxes and a wolf all were dressed in the same clothes as he was, the same dull green jumpers. It was all part of the uniform after all, 'unity is strength and unity through consistency' as the Emperor once put it.

Man he was hungry, Cinos spied a small hatch in the wall with buttons along the side of it, a food dispenser. He looked at the palm of his right hand, implanted in which was his credit chip which was a safe way of protecting money. All he had to do was press his palm to the plate beside the hatch and select what he wanted, for some reason he had a hankering for something spicy. He knows he was asked not to eat anything but his stomach disagreed with it too much.

"Cinos" said a voice, that snapped Cinos out of his thoughts. He turned and saw a young, brown cat.

"Lola? What are you doing up so early?" Cinos asked, Lola worked in the same sector as he did but she had a much cushier and well paid job looking after the computer banks.

"You got our letter" Lola asked.

"That was you?" Cinos asked surprised and he placed his hands on his hips "Is this some kind of joke? I need to be at work in a few hours, I can't afford to get caught like this."

"You followed our instructions and didn't eat or drink anything?" she asked disregarding his comments.

"Yes, I followed your instructions" he added a little acidly.

"And how do you feel?" Lola asked

"Hungry and thirsty, this better be quick, I need to grab a bite to eat on the way to work otherwise I'll never survive my shift" Cinos said.

Lola began leading him down a set of stairs, deeper into the lower levels of the city. "You might find it hard to believe but all food and drink are laced with suppression drugs"

"I've heard those crazy conspiracy theories" Cinos commented

"They aren't crazy conspiracy theories. They should wear off after 8 hours, but you skipped supper last night so they should be wearing off faster."

"How did you know I skipped supper last night?" Cinos asked but mysteriously Lola did not speak. "Where are we going anyway?"

"Down to the base section"

"The base section, are you crazy?" Cinos cried and came to a stop "Do you know the penalty for this is three years in the correction facility!"

Lola however didn't listen, instead she walked back, took him by the wrists and gently pulled him further down the stairs. What on earth did she want to show him and why did she have to be so mysterious about it?

Down and down they went and the lower they went the colder and darker the place became. Cinos noticed that as they went lower the air became more and more... he didn't know what it became but the air smelt 'better' somehow. A moment later Cinos suddenly felt dizzy, he grabbed the handrail and breathed heavily to clear his head, the dizziness went but he was left with a very bad headache.

"You'll experience a sudden headache and nausea, it's just withdrawal symptoms."

"Withdrawal symptoms?"

"The air is pumped with chemicals to make the mind more suggestible." Lola said.

"Are you just trying to scare me?" Cinos asked but curiously found himself still following Lola deeper and deeper into the complex. This place looked like it hadn't been used in years. The white walls became dark blue and grimy below level F3 and still they kept descending.

"Halt!" called a voice from the darkness "Who goes there!"

"It's just me, Lola" she called "and I've brought Cinos with me."

From the shadows stepped a young, humanoid wolf creature "Cinos? Truly? Don't you mean Son...?"

"I know who I mean!" Lola cut across him "Go tell Marcus we're on our way, quick!"

Just as quickly as he had appeared the wolf ran back into the darkness and slowly Lola and Cinos began to follow.

"What the heck was all that about?" Cinos asked, Lola turned on a small, electrical torch to light their way. "Who's Marcus?"

"Someone you'll want to meet." Lola said mysteriously.

"Fine let's get this over with!" Cinos said in an impatient tone.

"You're not worried what will happen if the Emporer found out you were with a pack of rebels?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you didn't say anything about Rebels?!" Cinos said backing slightly away "I should report this to my superiors"

"Then why don't you go run away and do it now?" Lola asked

Cinos made to answer, paused, thought for a minute and sighed "I'm curious, I want to know what he's got to say about my family."

"Defying the Imperial law to that degree? The drugs must be wearing off." Lola quickly looked behind them and around the area.

"What is it?" Cinos asked.

"Nothing, nothing" she said warily her large ears perking up and scanning the area around them like radar dishes "I thought for a moment I heard someone behind us. Come on" and she pulled Cinos along the corridor with her.

After what felt like hours they emerged from the darkness into a very large room, a chamber held up by rusting pillars. The decaying ruins of old Robotopolis, it was cold apart from the flaming torches that decorated the walls. The room was not unoccupied however, dozens of rebels littered the room sitting in groups on hard, cold floors huddled around small lights, others standing and talking while a few seemed to be on some kind of patrol duty with gun like weapons. The room however fell silent as both he and Lola entered.

Cinos didn't like this, for some reason he was getting a very chilly reception from everyone, they all kept their eyes on him for every single second as if they disliked him for some reason, was he about to walk into a rebel trap or something?

He turned around and a guard had taken up a position behind him, oh this was a trap!

"Ah Cinos!" cried an old squirrel from across the room, he approached and opened his arms out to embrace him, and he did though Cinos did not embrace back. "How good to see you again" the elderly squirrel said, he was dressed in tattered robes of some kind that had once been finely made.

"Again?" Cinos asked as the old rodent broke the embrace.

"Oh of course, you don't recognise me do you?" the squirrel said.

"I've never seen you before in my life" Cinos said crossing his arms over his chest. He was aware that for some reason he was feeling far braver then he should, Lola had said the air above was filled with a suppression drug or something.

"As I said, you don't recognise me" the squirrel said "I'm Marcus, I was a great friend of your uncle Chuck."

"My uncle is on the outer colonies with my brother and sister and has been there for nearly fifteen years" Cinos said convinced he'd caught Marcus in a dirty little lie.

Marcus looked like he was having some kind of internal struggle with himself, at one point he looked close to tears but appeared to hold them back and regained control of himself. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this Cinos, but your uncle, your sister and your brother are all dead. They were executed 15 years ago."

Cinos didn't speak at first, he thought he'd misheard, but slowly his words sunk in. This had to be some kind of joke, some kind of sick joke.

"No" was all Cinos could say "No that's not possible, they're on the outer worlds, I get a communication from them every month."

"Easily faked using advanced GCI technology, all part of his plan to maintain control of you" Marcus explained but Cinos wasn't following it. "Now I'm going to have to tell you a story, one you might not believe, one that you might not want to hear, but please hear me out, ask questions if you like but please don't argue until you have heard everything, then you can make your own decisions."

Cinos was wary of this old squirrel who treated him like an old friend but he nodded and said "Go on, I'm listening."

Marcus smiled "Long ago there was a scientist who went bad, he was called Dr. Ivo Robotnik and he set out on a quest to conquer the world and turn it into this massive empire of metal, smoke and pollution, few could oppose him but some did. His biggest threat were a band of rebels who called themselves simply as 'the Freedom Fighters' striking from a hidden base called Knot Hole, now they were by no means the only opposition Robotnik had to encounter but it was the greatest opposition because it was lead by Princess Sally Acorn who could inspire leadership in any who spoke with her, but more importantly it was also aided by a skilled, teenage warrior, a blue hedgehog who called himself Sonic the Hedgehog."

Marcus paused as if Cinos should recognise something, he didn't "Go on" Cinos asked.

"Sonic defeated Robotnik at every turn, the hedgehog was arrogant, cocky and won the respect of many of the rebels despite his young age. Robotnik had tried everything he could to eliminate that threat to his world conquest that he began researching into any technology to match Sonic. Genetics, robotics even pathological weapons, that's bacteria. But the first weapon to successfully match Sonic for both speed and agility was a machine simply called Metal, or Metal Sonic."

Metal Sonic, now that did trigger a memory, the memory, the nightmare of being choked and beaten up and drowned.

"Robotnik kidnapped a young fox by the name of Miles Prowler or Tails."

Tails, that also triggered a memory of sorts, Tails, Tails?

"He planned to use Tails as bait to get Sonic to a perfectly designed battle ground for him to face off against Metal. Sonic freed Tails but the speedy teenage could not match Robotniks tyrannical machine double, it was just far too well made. At first it was feared Sonic was dead when he did not return, but later we learned he was captured and imprisoned in an underwater facility, subjected to terrible punishment and torture."

More memories started to flood Cinos's mind, but he didn't know what to make of them. It was as if someone had opened his mind and placed memories from someone else's mind in his that didn't relate to anything in his own life. His head was starting to hurt. As soon as he saw a memory it would vanish beneath the surface again, leaving only the memory of remembering the memory like something was constantly trying to pull them away again.

"What happened to Sonic?" Cinos asked and gulped, he shivered "Is he dead?"

"Oh, he's not dead, he's here" Marcus said and Cinos looked around the room for a blue hedgehog, but there wasn't one. In fact he was the only hedgehog in the room.

"Where?" Cinos asked looking back at Marcus and for some reason he started to feel sick.

"Cinos" Marcus said looking firmly into Cinos's eyes "I'm looking right at him"

Cinos took a small step away from Marcus, at first his mind refused to work or accept this information but when he was convinced he'd heard him correctly Cinos wanted to get out of there, he wanted to think the old man was insane but fragments of memories were flooding his head, he remembered Tails, a small brown furred Fox he had feelings of but very few memories, the same went for the name Sally Acorn, he had a faint image of her in his mind and feelings for her, very deep ones, but he couldn't remember her. Then there was Metal, whenever he thought of Metal he associated the name with pain, anger and fury.

Marcus placed a hand on Cinos's shoulder "Cinos, you 'are' Sonic the Hedgehog"

Nah, this was a trick or something, it had to be, Cinos' breathing began to quicken but his mind now felt like a muddle of thoughts and broken memories "How come I don't remember it!" Cinos almost shouted it out, he felt like he was on the brink of hyperventilating.

"I think you do" Marcus said "Surely some of what you once were must have bubbled up from the surface by now."

"I remember something, but..." Cinos added he really was going to hyperventilate but he fought it.

"When they captured you Robotnik decided he could use you to find the Freedom Fighters and crush the greatest opposition against him, but you refused to cooperate. Many times you tried to escape and often nearly succeeded, but once you encountered Metal and in your weakened state and deprived of food you were quickly dragged right back to your prison. Robotnik decided not to robotisize you, that's a process where you're turned into a cybernetic robot, he had a much crueller idea.

"Robotnik hit upon the idea of mind manipulation. Reality is only what we perceive to be real, so Robotnik set about changing the perceptions of Sonic the Hedgehog. He hooked you up to a machine and through a treatment of mind grafting and reward/punishment therapy he took your mind to pieces, ripped out what he wanted then he put it back together again the way he wanted. It took months but when he'd finished he'd extracted everything he wanted all the locations of the Freedom Fighters, all the names of the spys and who lead which group, everything. You were even tricked into betraying your friends and allies and Robotnik sent a team to wipe them out, all of them. Once the Freedom Fighters were exterminated he sent you back to the machine, broke your mind apart again, implanted new ideas and wiped your memory before implanting them again and repeating the process until very little was left of Sonic the Hedgehog. You must've been in there a long time because by the time he'd released you your fur colour had faded to a dull brown and you had become the hedgehog Cinos, a lowly worker in the filtration plant."

Cinos blinked a few times, the more Marcus talked the more scattered images he had, he remembered being tied down, his eyes forced open by a vice and made to stare up at a bright light that blinked on and off rapidly, he remembered massive headaches, constant beatings and waking up in pain, but the most vivid memories were of where he was submerged in cold water only to be brought out on the brink of drowning.

Cinos shook his head, no this can't be right this was some cruel trick, the rebels were just trying to confuse him. Sure the administration was a little on the extreme side but the government wouldn't go so far, would they? If it was true then the administration could effectively wipe or alter the memories of anyone with views they don't agree with. No, what was he thinking! He had always been Cinos, his memories were far too vivid to be implanted.

"No" Cinos shook his head "I don't believe it." but his voice obviously betrayed the truth of what was running through his head. He didn't want to believe it but there were... doubts, these 'other' memories he had were just as vivid, in fact they were more vivid then his 'real' memories.

"Have you ever been in a hurry to get somewhere and found yourself to be there much quicker than you expected?" Marcus asked "That was a talent Sonic possessed."

Cinos gulped slightly and breathed deeply to take it all in, he had found that many a times while running. Whenever he ran it was like he could travel faster than the average person and when he ran he experienced something he'd thought he'd never experienced before. Joy, excitement, fun, it was like he was a different person while running.

Sonic placed his... no his name was Cinos, Cinos placed his hands on his head, he could feel a migraine coming on. He couldn't breathe! He really was hyperventilating now! Lola was on hand with a paper bag for him to breathe into.

"I understand it is a lot to take in" Marcus said patting Cinos on the shoulder as he slowly gained control of his breathing.

"Why not just kill me?" Cinos asked next "If I was such a danger to him why not just kill me?"

"Because to kill you would've made you a martyr to any remaining Freedom Fighters, they were aware what Robotnik had done to you, if he had killed you then Sonic would've become a figurehead for a new wave of rebellion. Instead he kept you under observation like a pet and integrated you into his society as a model citizen and so you could not cause any trouble. Recently he's been relaxing his grip on you and we were able to sneak you out of Robottropolis."

"So you rebels? You are..."

"The last of the Freedom Fighters." Marcus finished for him "I've brought you here, now Sonic because we are gaining strength to move again and we could use your help, with you as a part of us we can gain more support and hopefully get our message heard."

"I don't even know if I trust you" Cinos said, "Why should I believe I was this great rebel Sonic?" he didn't know Marcus after all, this could all just be a test by the Emperor to see if he was still loyal to him.

"Believe what you want to, I only told you the truth, and I'm offering you the chance to join us but it is your decision." Marcus said "If you wish you can return to the surface and carry on with your life in Robotropolis de-clogging filters, but if you want to join us then it must be done now."

Cinos held his head again and sighed, he could still feel that migraine coming "I need a moment" he asked feeling his head.

"Of course, but before you go I want to return something to you" and from his robes the old Squirrel produced a pair of old looking, red shoes with a white strap and buckle on them instead of laces. "Your old shoes, maybe they'll trigger some memory."

Gingerly Cinos reached out and took them from Marcus. "Now I understand you'll have a lot of thinking to do. Don't worry about your work shift, it starts in an hour and a half, you have plenty of time to consider your actions." Marcus lightly patted him on the back "We'll talk in a little while."

His mind full of confusion Cinos couldn't think of anything else to say and just walked off towards a quiet area to think carrying these red shoes. As he did he caught a few words Marcus was saying to Lola.

"Do you think he will help us?" she asked

"I don't know" Marcus replied "There's not much left of the boy I once knew."

Cinos walked out through a small opening into a dark corridor and curled up in a small corner away from the main group, set the shoes down in front of him and began to think.

Could his sister and brother and uncle all be dead? No it just couldn't be, he'd received communications from them every month. But at the same time he did admit there was something off about those messages, he just couldn't put his finger on it but there was something wrong with the voices, he assumed the equipment they used to record it was faulty but it could have been faked? Modern technology allowed almost anything to be done, special effects in Telly-drama's were proof of that. But if Robotnik had altered his memories could he have altered what he thought his brother and sister looked like or sounded like to fit the faked messages? Did he even have a brother and sister?

He thought back to before he was fifteen, his mother and father had died in a boating accident and he was raised by uncle Chuck and lived happily in Robotropolis, but the more he thought about it the more he realised that though he remembered it, he had no feelings attached to those memories, they were just pictures, after the death of his parents everything felt... fake somehow. It was the inverse of these 'other' memories he was slowly seeing, he had feelings when the likes of Tails or Sally were mentioned, he could feel them but he couldn't remember them. He remembered a birthday party he had when he turned fifteen but he had no feelings attached to it, was it fake? Was Chuck fake, was the whole thing, his whole life a fake? Was he nothing but a lie?

He sighed and his attention instead turned to the red shoes. Sonic's shoes, 'his' old shoes as Marcus had said. They looked like his size at least. Slipping his work boots off Cinos took the red sneakers, undid the buckles on them and slipped his feet inside and tightened the belts up. When he did he was surprised to find that they almost fitted like a glove as if they were either made to measure his feet, or had slowly been stretched over years of use by his own feet. He stood up in them, he'd never had training shoes before, he only remembered wearing boots but when he stood up in these shoes and took a few steps the comfortable shoes felt more familiar to his feet than his grimy old boots ever did.

He tapped them against the concrete floor to test their fit further before he looked across the dark room he was now in, he was alone, no one around and no one to ridicule him if this went wrong.

Through instinct he bent his knees, leaned back slightly and using his arms he fired himself forward with all his might and ran as fast as his legs would go. Less than a second later he had slammed into the opposite wall unable to stop himself in time. He pushed himself off the wall and was sure his nose was broken, it looked like it was bent slightly upwards or had it always been like that?

Cinos could hear a lot of chattering behind him from the other rebels, the brown hedgehog was still uncertain if he should join. What had Marcus just told him? That he was once a rebel, a hero and a brave warrior but Marcus was also telling him that he Cinos himself was nothing but a lie, he was just an invention that was programmed into his head. He wasn't real.

Cinos slowly collapsed to the floor and tears started welling up in his eyes. According to Marcus he had become Cinos about ten years ago, so his life since then as Cinos, the friends he'd made, for the past ten years he hadn't been living his life, he'd been living the life of someone who was just made up. Cinos leaned against the concrete wall and began to mope as he became more and more insoluble. He wasn't real, everything he believed, his likes, his dislikes, they were all programmed into him. He was nothing but a lie!

If it was true then Cinos knew he should feel angry at Robotink, if it was a lie Cinos would feel angry anyway but at these rebels for such a cruel trick, but he couldn't deny the images he was having in his head and the dreams all apparent memories of a life he'd once lived. The more these fragments came back to him the more they tormented him. The memories he was seeing were so beautiful, so energetic, so much fun that when he recalled the last ten dull years as Cinos he only became more upset.

Cinos suddenly became aware of a light humming, a hum that was becoming louder and louder, and it was coming from further down the darkened corridor. From in front of him he could see a SwatPod coming towards him! He turned to run and maybe warn the rebels as well, but another Swatpod had pulled up behind him. Thankfully it looked like they hadn't seen him yet. Through fear and instinct Cinos ran towards an area in the shadows and hid out of the way of those menacing machines.

From his hiding place Cinos could see the winged doors on the pods open up and two Swatbots exited from each. Swatbots were tall, machine men in dark armour with large heads. He could hear more Swatpods hovering around somewhere in the darkness and landing nearby.

"SWATBOTS" someone cried. There was an initial sound of panic that was quickly calmed by another voice.

"Calm down, remain calm." There was a pause as silence fell "We are your prisoners, we surrender, take us to be processed, we ask to be treated fairly and with..."

BANG! That was the sound of a gun! Cinos heard a great deal of screaming and scuttling followed by more and more bangs of more guns. Cinos backed further down into the shadows the more bangs of guns he heard the more the screams were silenced.

Cinos felt someone grab him and he yelped, but when he spun around it turned out to just be Lola.

"This way" she called and pulled Cinos down the darkened corridor further away from the shooting and screaming.

"What's going on!" Cinos shrieked not wanting to accept what was happening.

"Robotnik's found us out!" Lola called "We have to get out of here!"

Lola pulled Cinos for what felt like miles, miles through the darkness of the under city, they ran and ran their feet echoing in the deep tunnels. It didn't sound like anyone was following them, there was no hum of a Swatpods no thundering feet of bots. Maybe they were safe now but Lola refused to slow down, she just kept pulling him further and further along.

"Lola! Lola can we stop now?" Cinos shouted trying to get Lola to slow down but she didn't slow down until they arrived at a big door.

"Through here!" Lola shouted and she opened the door, stepped through it and...

BANG!

Lola was thrown back into Cinos arms, her body went limp, her chest was bleeding heavily and her eyes were staring out vacantly with no expression on her face, Lola was dead and standing in the frame of the door was another murdering Swatbot.

"Look there's another one" it said. "That's our target" from behind him came another bot and loud, running footsteps from behind Cinos told him that more were on the way. He was surrounded. The bot in front of him raised his gun and levelled it at Cinos. The brown hedgehog looked down at Lola, her eyes were lifeless. How could they just do this? What had Lola actually done to deserve this? He reached up and gently closed her eyes.

Cinos didn't even look up at the bots, his attention was fixed firmly on Lola. They opened fire on him, there was a bright flare and Cinos blacked out all together.

**To Be Continued...**

**Authors notes:** The inspiration for this story came when I was just getting back into Sonic the Hedgehog games about 4 years ago and I thought. 'What would happen if Robotnik actually succeeded in defeating Sonic?'

[Edits 28/03/13] Made a few changes becasue I'm altering the story a little.

Hope you readers enjoy the new story.

-Cheers


	3. Emperor Tim Blakes

**Chapter Two**

**Emperor Tim Blakes**

When Cinos came to he found himself back in his quarters. He lazily laid there in bed and ran his hand through his quills. 'It was just another odd dream' he reasoned, just a dream. Any moment now his alarm clock would wake him up and he would begin another mundane day in the filtration plant. Strange how you always woke up just before your alarm should go off allowing you to turn it off before it actually goes off, etcetera, etcetera. But after about ten minutes, which then became twenty minutes he decided to look at his clock and see what time it actually was. It was 1:00pm?! He was late for work and not just late, mega late! How could he sleep in like this?

He leapt out of bed and went to grab his boots, but they weren't on the floor next to his bed where they usually were and what was more odd there appeared to be a pair of shoes already on his feet. A pair of red, training shoes with a white strap and buckle on them, the shoes from his dream! But it was just a dream, wasn't it? He'd just been shot, shouldn't he wake up dead? Maybe he was dead. Cinos placed his hand against the wall and pushed, it didn't pass through the wall, okay he was still alive, but how?

It was in this moment of realisation that Cinos noticed something else off, this time about his surroundings. In the corner of his room he could see a small notch out of which was poking a small semi-sphere with what looked like a camera lens in it. Suspicious, Cinos got up and walked towards his wash room and the 'camera' rotated to follow him. Someone was watching him!

He'd been caught outside the city obviously and with a pack of rebels, but they hadn't killed him, why? They killed everyone else and the Swatbots had said 'he' was their target. Cinos experimentally pressed the release for his door, but nothing happened, the slab of metal remained in place locked from the outside obviously, he clearly wasn't going to work today.

Cinos felt his stomach growling, he hadn't eaten since last night and he really needed some food. Still keeping an eye on that camera he walked over to the food dispenser on his wall and pressed his hand against the panel.

'_I am sorry, your chip is invalid_' said a robotic female voice. Invalid? He tried again '_I am sorry, your chip is invalid'_ How can his chip be invalid? He'd only just used it yesterday! Only convicted felons got their chips deactivated. Whoa wait a minute, if his chips been deactivated that means he's lost everything, all his credits, his life savings, ten years of savings, all of it, gone!

He glanced back at the camera that kept his eye on him every single moment. He even went into his wash room and there was a camera fitted into his bath room! Whoever was watching him wasn't interested in being discreet.

Cinos had a real loathing for whoever was on the other side of that camera, whatever he did it just kept watching him, it looked like they wouldn't even let him take a dump without taking an interest.

Cinos walked back to his bed and sat down. He thought long and hard. They, the rebels had said he was once a dangerous member of the Freedom Fighters before Robotnik and his administration wiped his memory, was it true? He had to know! Ignoring the camera Cinos crossed over to his info screen.

"Screen" He ordered and it flashed into life at the sound of his voice, at least this still worked. "Information" the hedgehog asked, "What can you tell me about Sonic the Hedgehog?"

It took a few moments before the screen came back with data, information was still free for exchange but only through the Scrap Brain up in space. All questions and queries were monitored by the administration and no doubt he'd get into trouble for it, but he didn't care he had to know if it was true.

"Data entry, Sonic the Hedgehog" the screen said in a monotone voice as a lot of text came up onto the screen but it was read out by the voice anyway "Sonic was a dangerous warrior and an enemy of the Government who only seek peace between all people, Sonic was a terrorist who planted bombs in random cities, destroyed production facilities and attacked anyone who had received medical and cybernetic help from the generous cybernetic scientists"

"What happened to him?" Cinos asked. "Sonic I mean."

"Sonic was eventually captured and the blue hedgehog cracked under interrogation. Sonic relented, said he'd been misguided by the Freedom Fighters propaganda and now supports the administration."

So Sonic was technically still alive. Cinos felt a lump in his throat as he considered his next request. "Screen..." he gulped, not sure if he was going to like what he was about to see "show me Sonic the Hedgehog, show me a full image" the written data vanished to be replace by an image of a blue hedgehog, a life sized image that filled the whole screen. Sonic had large, green eyes, a slight frown on his face and a piercing, defiant stare. His quills were long and flowing and his nose was slightly bent upwards.

Cinos swallowed and that lump in his throat had grown larger. Cinos's could see his reflection in the screen and it overlaid on Sonic's image almost perfectly. Cinos began to tremble, his eyes widened in disbelief and his jaw dropped. It was him! The image was reversed obviously, was much younger and his own eyes were not as defiant or piercing, but apart from that it looked exactly like him! It was him! Gingerly the brown hedgehog reached up and pressed his fingers against the screen as if he could reach in and pull Sonic out, but he couldn't. Cinos felt a dampness come to his eyes and he felt a tear roll down his check.

Words failed him, in fact his brain was failing him. It was like he was looking at a ghost but it was a ghost that looked exactly like him, another version of him, the 'real' version of him, what Cinos himself should be. Instinctively he knew all that stuff the screen had said about Sonic was wrong, it had been twisted to suit the Empires' and the administration's point of view, somehow he just knew it.

His brain was going into meltdown, his brain was thinking of his past, of his life before he was 17. He remembered a life before 15 but it was not as Sonic, he'd always been Cinos but there had always been something wrong with those memories, something he'd known all his life. Another part of his brain told him there were other memories but they were just out of his reach. His head was starting to hurt as he strained to remember his past, he rubbed his temples and strained to mentally dig his memories back out, but no matter how hard he concentrated he could not dig these memories back out of whatever hole they were buried in. All he could remember were very small fragments, the name Tails and Sally, the Freedom Fighters, Metal Sonic, all he recognised but he couldn't remember, he just couldn't remember!

"For punishment against the administration Sonic was sent to a correctional facility and now resides undercover with a new identity" the screen continued to say

"Shut up" Cinos hissed as he continued to struggle to remember, but the screen refused to obey the command and continued to go on "He was put into hiding by the grateful Emperor to protect him from any remaining rebels who planned to kill him for his betrayal."

'"SHUT UP!" Cinos screamed at the screen but still it paid him no notice. "With his past put behind him he supports the Emperor in his plans for peace" Cinos whirled around and put his hands over his ears tears streaming down his cheeks. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" He spotted the camera spying on him and trembling Cinos just snapped.

He went over to his seat and ripped off one of its legs and in his rage he swung it and smashed the camera repeatedly until it dropped out of its socket to the floor and continued to smash it to bits and even then he didn't stop. His anger just kept building and building like a breaking dam, repeatedly he struck the camera again and again and again, even when he was sure it didn't work he didn't stop, he just hit it more and more and more until it was unrecognisable, only after two minutes did Cinos stop. He tossed the chair leg into the corner of the room and he collapsed onto his bed and began to sulk into his pillow. He hated the administration, he hated Robotropolis, he hated the empire, he hated the Emperor and above all he hated Dr. Ivo Robotnik!

* * *

In a dark corner of a faraway place the most wicked man on the planet stroked his robot, pet bird. The Emperor was a tall skinny man with a handsome, reassuring face, a face the people liked, a face the people believe in. He had slightly wavy dark hair, bright blue eyes, a thin-ish face and a smile that was charming as it was reassuring.

The Emperor, or Tim Blakes to give his real name had been a happy man this morning, he'd just sent some relief aid to the southern continents that were struggling with a food shortage after their artificial photosynthesis farm started producing dud crops, that's not what he was happy about however, the money had come out of the tax payers pot, a collection of money used to improve facilities across the world, and while he was signing to let the funds be transferred to the southern continents he also pocketed a large percentage into his own accounts. Life was good until he got a call from the man who'd put him in power, Tim was the most wicked man on Mobius, but this guy was the most wicked man in the Empire. He'd never met him face to face, he could only see his dark silhouetteon on the monitor screen, he was a big man with a large, bushy moustache. He called himself Dr. Robotnik, once a feared and reviled man but he'd given Tim the resources needed to become Emperor of a vast and successful galactic empire and made him rich so Robotnik can't all be bad.

"Tim Blakes!" Robotnik said unexpectedly on a vid screen that just popped up from his desk "Tell me, did I put you in power to be incompetent?"

"Nice to meet you too, sir" Robotnik was in effect the real Emperor of the world, Tim was just a figurehead but as long as Tim signed for whatever Robotnik wanted then the Emperor of the Mobian Empire was free to do with the empire as he wished. Tim had often wondered why Robotnik hadn't taken control and instated himself as Emperor, but the reason was obvious, people knew him, they hated him, his image inspired uprisings and rebellions. So he took the back seat. Tim didn't like that he was technically a puppet Emperor, but Robotnik didn't yank on his strings that often.

"Where is Sonic?" the dark voice of Robotnik asked.

"Relax" Tim said "He's still under observation."

"Perhaps you'd like to know my Spybots spotted Sonic heading down into the lower levels following that cat woman, Lola!" Robotnik hissed.

Tim was suddenly sitting bolt upright in his chair "What? But the lower levels are restricted, anyone knows this!" The suppressors in the air didn't reach that far down into the lower levels so he'd had them quardened off so no one could go down there. Unfortunately they needed access to fix foundations in the city so he never sealed them completely. But Tim quickly relaxed. "What trouble can a long hedgehog do?"

"Sonic is a threat to us!" Robotnik hissed in his low voice.

"What does it matter, you wiped his memory didn't you?" Tim said smiling his reassuring smile, which unfortunately didn't work on Robotnik.

"The process of mental extraction ripped his mind apart and drove him insane, I hid the remaining fragments in his mind and programmed him with his Cinos identity, the secondary personality is just an avatar however and I suspect those fragments of his old mind are rising up back to the surface." Robotnik was really obsessed over this one weak hedgehog that Tim could probably defeat with one swift kick between the legs. "I sent a battalion of Swat Bots to retrieve him, they found him with a group of rebels!"

"Rebels!" That was news to Tim, he'd put the story about that there were rebel terrorists on Mobius just to apply some fear in the right place to get some people on his side, he never dreamed there actually were rebels on this planet.

"I had the Swat Bots terminate them, retrieve Sonic and their remains are being burned in the fuel furnaces." Robotnik was always careful when it came to hiding evidence.

"What does it matter" Tim said relaxing "Just wipe his memory again."

"I have tried that already!" Robotnik said as if Tim was stupid for suggesting it "Sonic's mind has grown stronger now that he's an adult, the machine could only erase his short term memory now, all I can erase is the memory that the procedure took place, but I cannot erase anything before that."

Tim smiled smugly, Robotnik had finally found something that confounded him, Tim was enjoying every minute of it.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, Blakes!" Robotnik snapped "I have one final trick up my sleeve, if you fail this then there will be consequences."

"Why not just kill him" Tim asked laying back in his chair and said smoothly "Just one bullet to the brain and you'll see that the trouble will soon die down." Robotnik, at first didn't reply for five whole seconds and looked at him with contempt.

"That thinking is why you are merely the puppet and I am the puppet master" and Robotniks face vanished off the screen. There then followed from his mobile telecommunication phone a string of instructions and a vid file that would sort out Robotnik's Sonic problem. Tim smiled when he read it, this was indeed a masterful form of deception worthy of Tim Blakes himself.

* * *

Two hours later Emperor Blakes laid back in a big chair behind a large desk. Someone once suggested in a public place that the size of his desk was compensating for something, that person was quickly 'corrected' in the most violent way possible.

After a couple more minutes there was a voice over the intercom. "Emperor, Cinos is here."

"Excellent" Blakes cleared his throat and flicked a switch under his desk that allowed drugged gas to enter the room. Tim wouldn't be affected by the gas, his lungs had a mechanical filter that Robotnik fitted him with so he wouldn't be affected himself, but Cinos would be affected, the purpose was to make –emphasis on 'make'- Cinos relax. "Send him in."

A large pair of double, metal doors opened at the far side of his large office and Cinos was escorted in by two security bots into the large room. The office itself was decorated with tall standing pillars and tall, giant golden statues of Tim Blakes himself.

"Welcome Cinos" he said to the short brown hedgehog who was now Tim noticed still wearing the green jumper uniform of a worker. "Have a seat." Tim put on his most harmless and reassuring voice.

"The air smells pretty funny in here." Cinos added squeezing his nostrils closed as he sat down in the chair.

"Pay it no mind" the Emperor said, "You realise why you are here?"

"No, Emperor" Cinos added bluntly "Your friends out there said I'm here because I am 'confused'"

"Yes, there is that, but there is also that you have spoken to the most dangerous terrorists on the planet. I have concerns they may have poisoned your mind with their lies." Tim leaned back in his chair "It's a dirty trick they are now capable of. They can play with your mind and make you believe you are something you're not."

"Really" Cinos said in a not convinced voice.

"You're lucky we found you when we did." Tim added "You were hooked up to a machine, an abandoned invention I am sad to say we actually created and tinkered with before deciding it would take us down a route I didn't agree with. I thought I had disposed of it and all prototypes but somehow the rebels had managed to find one and rebuilt it. The terrorists planned to convert average people to join their war on the empire and peace and freedom and the constitution."

"I... was hooked up to a machine?" Cinos asked his expression softening, Tim was getting through to him, excellent. Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult as Robotnik made it out to be.

"Yes, they invented a fiction for you to believe and they manipulated your perceptions so you turned against me." Tim paused as Cinos seemed to consider this, then the emperor added "They've done that to plenty of others. Your friend Lola for example, thankfully we've now recovered the machine and destroyed it" he lied.

This caught Cinos' attention, there was silence between them for a few moments before Cinos asked. "Why did you kill her? Why did you kill any of them? Why did you kill all of them?"

"My dear boy" TIm had the uneasy feeling the suppressing drugs weren't working well on Cinos anymore, this was troubling, he was beginning to see why Robotnik feared this rodent. "Lola didn't die. That was just part of the fiction to set you against me. Lola is alive and well and currently in a correction facility trying to straighten her mind out."

"Really?" Cinos again didn't sound convinced, he had watched Lola die in his arms after all but Robotnik was a step ahead of that and had provided some very convincing evidence, forged naturally. "She left a message for you, would you like to see it?" It was a very detailed 3D model and using a bit of old fashioned media magic and a fake voice Robotnik had brought the late Lola back to life to do and act the way he wanted her to, she was now just another puppet to apply a bit of leverage.

Tim didn't wait for a reply, he just brought up the image of Lola which was projected onto a screen on the wall to the left of him.

"Hello Cinos" the cat said. She was out of her work overalls and in the white gown of someone in the correction facility "Don't worry, I'm fine. I heard you believe me dead, shot by Swatbots. But it was all a plot by the band of terrorists I have now disowned. They wanted you in their numbers so we both dreamed up a false identity for you, that of Sonic the Hedgehog, the old terrorist and the oldest enemy of the Empire. Please don't hate me for what I did, I was brainwashed by the same trick as well. They had me believe I was descended from royalty and that I was destined to lead this world when the Empire was overthrown, god forbid." It was remarkable, the 3D model could convey any emotion Robotnik wanted and it did it to such perfection even people watching fiction like this on the news were fooled. "Please don't resist the Emperor, please let him help you. You won't see me again, I have to get away from this place, I'm moving to one of the colony worlds on the outer rim once my rehabilitation is done. Goodbye, and good luck."

Robotnik must be pretty proud of this forgery, he'd produced a piece of fake evidence that looked so real Lola herself might have said all of that stuff herself.

"What do you intend to do with me?" Cinos asked.

"I won't make you do anything you don't want to." Tim lied making his voice as smooth as possible, if Cinos didn't do what he wanted he'd force him to anyway. "But I suggest you take a break from work and spend some time in the minimum security correction facility until this nasty experience is purged from your mind." According to Robotnik if Cinos was willing then it was possible Cinos could have his mind erased again, that was the whole point of this charade.

Cinos looked at the frozen picture of Lola and the hedgehogs cold expression appeared to melt. He turned to the Emperor "Okay, I agree. I don't want to feel like this anymore, it's killing me."

Tim smiled reassuringly. "Excellent, I've got an escort for you in case any rebels try to snatch you back on the way down. Oh and once you are recovered I'll contact the finical department and they will reactivate your chip for you. I apologise for that, it was just in case the terrorists tried to use your hard earned credits to buy materials to make weapons of mass destruction. I hope you understand."

Cinos nodded, thanked the Emperor and left the office with two guard bots who would take him straight to the correctional facility. The door closed and Tim Blakes felt pretty happy with himself, that hadn't been so hard at all. About half a minute later the secret monitor that Robotnik used to communicate with Tim popped back up again and the dark sillohett appeared on the screen. Before Robotnik could speak Tim smiled at him to show he was successful. "Ah, Robotnik, you're Sonic problem is over. Cinos has agreed to go to a correction facility where his memory will be erased again."

"He has agreed?" Tim nodded "Then why has he just ran off down the corridor in the opposite direction?"

Tim felt his pride deflate and fall like a lead balloon. "He's running again?"

"The master of deception has fallen for his own game!" Robotnik growled "I am seriously considering if this Empire needs a more competent emperor!" and with that the screen went blank. Tim, the mighty Emperor suddenly felt very sick.

* * *

Cinos was angry, his fists were clenched as he walked with the guardbots behind him. If he'd had a chance he would've leapt up and smacked the Emperor over the head with his chair. Of course he hadn't fallen for such a stupid deceit. Dr. Robotnik could invent family communications since he could've also programmed what his family was like into his head, but he couldn't fool him when it came to Lola, Cinos had worked with her for years and knew her habits, true her body language in the fake message was exactly that of Lola's as well as the way she talked yet somehow Cinos could somehow tell it was a fake, small, subtle things that just told him.

While moping in his apartment Cinos had wondered why should he fight the Emperor and Robotnik? He had a life here after all, a job, money, food, everything he needs, why not just let Robotnik burry his old memories away again and let everything go back to normal. But there was one thing he didn't have. Freedom, the freedom to speak, the freedom to go where he wanted, why weren't they allowed to go outside the city? Why weren't they allowed into the lower areas? It was the simple fact that Robotnik had somehow used drugs and mind manipulation to take over the planet and installed a puppet as a leader to do his will, and if you didn't agree with his point of view or you got in his way he could either kill you, deport you to a penal colony or 'correct' you by altering your brain until you saw his point of view. That wasn't freedom, no matter how you silenced it, it was slavery, advanced slavery. Cinos had decided he wouldn't rest until people had the freedom to think and speak their mind and voice their opinions without fear of oppression. He would pick up where his alter ego Sonic had left off and fight Robotnik, both he and his empire were twisted, corrupt and evil, and Cinos would see to it that it was destroyed.

Cinos had to get away, if he went to the correction centre Robotnik would bury his recent revelations deep in his mind again. Cinos had a plan to escape these tin tyrants. He stopped, put a look of shock on his face and pointed in a particular direction off in the distance.

"Hey guy's what's that, it looks like a rebel!" and stupidly the robots actually pushed past him to get a better look. What a pair of idiots! With their backs turned Sonic took off again as fast as his feet could carry him and that was pretty fast.

He had no idea where he was going or what to do but he knew he had to get out of the city once and for all, then he can plan what to do next. He had to find these few scattered rebels he keeps hearing about assuming they still existed.

Cinos arrived at the edge of the city and instinctively slowed down. He planned to find a forbidden route to the under city where he could make his way outside the main city by going under it. The route was easy to find, they were all signposted everywhere warning that it was illegal to go down there and it would earn you six months in the correction facility. Cinos was already condemned to the correction facility so he just pushed passed all the warnings and began walking down the stairs deep into the dark under city.

Suddenly out of the darkness came something Cinos didn't want to see, a Swatbot. Damn! He turned around to retreat but there were more Swatbots closing in around him, he turned again and more were popping up, he was fast being surrounded.

Instinctively Cinos dug his feet in and took off at a fast run intending to ram into the Swatbots. But suddenly something sparked in Cinos' mind, the Swatbots stood still and reached out for him, instinctively Cinos jumped and landed on the Swatbots head, then using some kind of pre-programmed muscle memory he jumped from the head of one Swatbot to the other, then the other and the other until he skipped over the army of Swatbots. He leapt off the last one into a clearing, he landed, slipped and fell in a heap rolling along the floor.

He didn't have time to curse, or think, or worry, he wasn't out of the woods yet. He jumped up and continued to run as fast as he could. He had to limit how fast his legs could carry him because he was limited by light. He couldn't see very well and that made it difficult to navigate but the Swatbots were probably equipped with infrared sensors, they could see in the dark, he couldn't.

After a couple of minutes running he came to a stop and looked around, his heart hammering in his chest. He was in a silent, dark place, he could barely see and the only noise was the rumble of machines in the city above him.

Cinos shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, he was cold. He knelt down to make himself as small as possible and listened out for the stamping feet of Swatbots. He heard none, maybe he was safe? Slowly Cinos' heart began to slow down.

But then his heart rate quickly increased again when his hiding spot was flooded with light. Two large spot lights were coming straight towards him. It took him a couple of seconds to realise it was a subway train and it was about to smash into him!

Something sparked in Cinos mind again and he jumped, and jumped over three times his own height and landed on the roof of the subway car, the hedgehog began to run on top of the carriage. He leapt between one carriage and the other, when he landed he again lost his footing and fell flat on roof. He stayed there for a little while, this would take him much further from the Swatbots then his feet could in the dark.

He waited as the carriage clattered over the tracks, he'd spent about half an hour on top of this train until he felt it start to slow down. It was going to pull into a station. When it was slow enough Cinos, out of instinct rather than actually thinking, slipped into the gap between the two carriages and shimmied his way down it to the ground. Once the train had came to a total halt he leapt to the ground.

He considered waiting for the train to pull out again and get onto the platform. But that would be a bad idea he realised. Cameras could read his eyes and retina scan and determine who he is, then the security forces would be on his tail.

Instead Cinos moved further along the tunnel and disappeared deeper into it, as the darkness swallowed the brown hedgehog he not only disappeared from sight, he disappeared off the Empires radar altogether.

* * *

**To Be Continued…**

* * *

Authors notes: Readers might realise I've made quiet a few changes to this story, this is because I'm now distancing it from its original premise as a Blakes 7 homage and taking it into its own direction and own plot, though I'm going to leave chapter 1 as it is.

Cheers


	4. Escape from Mobius

**Chapter 3**

**Escape from Mobius**

Cinos knelt down and readied himself, he was doing something he'd had to do for the past two weeks since escaping the city, catch lunch. His hands parted wide as he observed his prey, a juicy looking cricket. It rubbed its back legs together and suspected nothing, Cinos went for it. He smacked his hands together but he cricket managed to jump from between his hands, he lashed out with his right hand to grab it but missed. Every time Cinos tried to grab it, it leapt from his grasp and hopped on, finally Cinos tripped, fell over and landed in the dirt and cursed himself as his cricket lunch hopped on.

Cinos suddenly, while laying in the dirt, reflected on how low he'd had to go to get food. He couldn't get food from a vender in the city because he guessed his chip in his hand had been deactivated –even though he dug it out of his palm himself- and even if it did work and had he used it Robotnik would've known within nanoseconds where Cinos was, and the point of what Cinos was doing was to remain under the Empires radar, at least until they forgot about him which he doubted would ever happen.

Once he'd escaped the city his life had just tipped him from one set of unfamiliar and uncomfortable circumstances to the next. He figured after a couple of days in the under city that he wouldn't last long without food and fresh water, unfortunately there was little of that in the under city. There were a million pipes down here, one must contain water but he dare not crack them open in case they contained gas or electricity cables or just sewage. He had a horrible experience when he thought he was drinking leaking water from a water pipe, only later to find out that he was drinking water that had been freshly flushed down a toilet. He'd thrown up for hours after that.

A day after this he decided his best chance was to leave the under city all together and try to find a life 'outside', but no one ever went outside, it was wild, it was nature, it was dangerous and he was always taught that nature was unkind, unforgiving and didn't care if you lived or died, but neither did the Empire so he took his chances with nature.

He figured he'd better learn how to hunt and catch his own food, no easy task however. Speed wasn't against him, he'd found out in the open he could get up to quiet an impressive speed, maybe twice that of a Mobian athlete so he could hunt down and keep up with his prey but he couldn't bring them down, he had no idea how to forge tools and there was very little to forge it with. Maybe in a week he could make a pointy stick with a rock but until then he had no way of bringing down big game, so he focused on little game.

He hunted rabbits and hairs, he could easily catch them but when it came to killing them he just didn't have the heart to do it, he was too squeamish and he couldn't stand the sight of blood so he reluctantly released them. His mind was really set on not eating smaller animals when he caught a hedgehog or lil'hedgehog as they're called, a small, balled up creature that walked on all fours and was no bigger than Cinos' own foot. He considered eating it because he'd become so hungry, but after wrestling with his conscious for hours he decided what he was about to do might amount to cannibalism and decided instead to let the poor little creature go, anyway he could sympathise with it. It was struggling to survive out here just as he was.

Cinos did however find a food source, one that given anything else he'd rather avoid, insects. That's right, bugs, beetles, spiders and there a few juicy big ones around but he seemed to have become partial to eating crickets for some odd reason.

Water was another problem but was quickly overcome. Cinos had found the pipe system for water that lead from the purification plant about 50 miles away. He opened an inspection hatch he'd found in the dirt, went inside, turned a valve and collected water to his hearts content.

At one point it had started to rain and Cinos considered collecting water that way as well as an alternative source of water in case his drink hole was discovered, this was impossible however because the rain wasn't ordinarily rain, it was acid rain, one drop would probably kill him and it stung his skin like hell. He took the lead from the land animals and took cover when he saw the approaching dark clouds in the filthy green sky, they were difficult to spot in the smog and smoke but Cinos soon caught the subtle differences between them.

Cinos signed and finally decided to pick himself up and sat cross legged in the dirt. Surviving was all well and good but it wasn't exactly helping him find the people he was looking for. Fellow freedom fighters, people who didn't agree with the Empire. Cinos had searched the Under City for two days and only found dead people, probably been flushed away to keep them quiet.

In the long silence he decided it was time to head back to his camp. He picked up a small collection of squashed bugs he'd collected and intended to eat later, they were a great source of protein and they were keeping him alive out here though he'd prefer something with more meat to it, like a burger or a hot dog or something.

His hideout was a small bunker, he didn't know what it was used for but by the state it was in he guessed it was abandoned. Inside he found a little food and water pipes, the water wasn't running to this station and he didn't know how to activate it so instead he just keeps making trips to the pumping relay station, it was 100 miles away but it took him only 10 minutes to run it and with each trip he was sure he was getting faster and faster.

He went inside, set his food down on a table and sat in a chair and got ready to dig in, to nights menu was either maggots, a big spider or a few dead crickets, 'Oh, the agony of choice' he thought sarcastically. He settled on the maggots only because they actually had a meaty flavour to them.

The one good thing Cinos had found about this bunker was it had electricity, as long as he used little of it he guessed he could remain undetected as a drain on the local power supply, wherever that was. It also had its own screen system so Cinos could listen into the news channels, the screen was bust but he could just use it like a radio. He would listen in for either a report about him, the 'dangerous, terrible hedgehog terrorist Sonic, also known as Cinos' as they were calling him, or what was more important to him info on any possible Freedom Fighters in the area.

Cinos turned on the screen and put a handful of still live maggots down his throat and tried to force his mouth to swallow, it was getting easier to eat these things and that was worrying him. The report was practically of zero interest to him, it was all industrial and financial news, he needed some info on either him or political unrest on the planet. At least lack of news about him meant the Empire was not troubling the public to look for him anymore though there were constant reminders that there was a reward out for his capture which kept going up the longer he stayed unfound.

After lunch Cinos left his bunker and laid in the dirt looking up at the night sky, at the blackness, the blackness that was filled with millions of stars visible to the naked eye. This far out away from sources of light pollution like big cities Cinos could see so many more stars then he could see from within the city, it was strangely stirring and beautiful. Looking up at the night sky he wasn't just seeing black and white he could see dark blues, yellows, reds unbelievable colours. Cinos relaxed knowing how safe he was here away from Robotnik and technology, but he also felt worried. It seems political unrest on the capital planet was not going to come, it seems the only way he'd find people willing to fight the Empire would be out there in space.

Watching the sky again, seeing the universe slowly turn around his point of view Cinos knew this was the right decision. Somehow he had to get to these far colonies he'd heard of where there would be rebellions willing to take him in, to accept his help and to bring his dream of overthrowing Robotnik a reality.

Then came Mobius' second moon, the Death Egg, high in the sky looking down, watching him and at that moment Cinos made the decision. He would go into space, he would find a way somehow to reach these settlements in the far universe and when he does he'll make it his mission to set the people free. Now, under the night sky and these stars he began to plan his escape from Mobius.

* * *

Little did Cinos know that high in the sky from a satellite in orbit someone was watching him, Robotnik had found Cinos and had sent some recovery agents to capture him. But by the time they arrived at his cubbyhole the Hedgehog was long gone, leaving very little evidence of where he'd gone. By that morning the hedgehog had left his hiding place and raced across the land heading far east and eventually the satellite lost track of him when Cinos either through design of mistake ran directly under a large storm cloud and they lost him.

* * *

Later that week Cinos shuffled forward a little in the line he was in and waited his turn to be seen by the man behind the desk.

Cinos had realised the first thing he had to do was find a ship. The easiest thing to do was to enlist on a cargo ship that would take him far into the outskirts of the system and from there he could smuggle himself onboard a light speed skipper to take him out to the further colonies. He knew of a place that wanted people and workers with few questions asked. To do that he had to go to the other side of the planet, no problem for someone who could move as fast as him until he had to cross lakes and seas. But he'd finally made it.

He'd packed enough water and provisions to survive the trip and once he'd got to where he was going, a pretty rough and dirty looking domed city similar to Robotropolises except here they'd never heard of cleaners, he snuck into it by using the sewer systems in a reverse of his method of escape from Robotropolises. To his horror he'd found a lot of dead bodies in the sewers probably murdered by someone and dumped down here, on this side of the planet it wasn't unusual to find the law lacking.

Since these bodies would be reported missing, not dead their chips would be active. Cinos knew he needed to get hold of a chip and though it felt like a ghoulish task he took the hand of the least decomposed body, a white hedgehog nonetheless and removed the chip from the cadavers hand. His insides had curled in disgust as he did this, it was the same feeling as when he tried to kill a defenceless animal for food, only in this case the thing he was working on was dead which made it even more disgusting in his books but it had to be done.

After that he set up a temporary base and scouted out the area from under sewer grates. The place was as tight on security as it was in Robotropolises but for whatever reason it seemed to allow drunken behaviour and lawlessness. Cinos guessed this far from the capital it had fewer eyes on it.

Cinos soon found that whether it was a sewer in Robotropolises or a sewer in this 'Metaltropolises' which was its name, he soon learnt that sewers still reeked a thousand times worse than a half eaten sandwich that had fallen into the back of the fridge and been forgotten about for months.

Cinos had spent the latter years of his life so far changing filters on the pumps and machines that used this mass of waste as a power source for one thing or another. The waste was good fertiliser and the methane a form of bio fuel. For some reason in the back of Cinos mind he sensed a strange irony that Dr. Robotnik one who used to use and wasted fossil fuels was now using a form of renewable energy. The brown hedgehog didn't know if it was ironic, he couldn't remember his old life but that corner of his mind Sonic was tucked into seemed to think it was odd. That was until you remembered that Robotnik had already plundered Mobius of its mineral wealth, all forms of fuel from Natural Gas to Oil and coal had been mined out of the planet and now they had to survive on imports and on renewable forms of energy. Some scientists had suggested harnessing the power of wind, water, air and the thermal energy from the planets core, but one by one the Emperor, or his puppet master Dr. Robotnik had turned them down referring to it as a waste of time because nature could not be tamed. So instead a fleet of ships had been built to suck mineral wealth out of the rest of the galaxy, first it started with asteroids and mining ships travelling to the other 8 words in Mobius' planet system, but they didn't stop there, they went further afield to far and distant planets that had mineral wealth and amazingly an atmosphere that Mobians could breath. So the Empire had expanded growing larger and larger with each planet they colonised. Not once however did these colonies encounter intelligent life. They found plant life, but no animals, no fish, no birds, it seemed the only constant in the universe was plant life and so far Mobius had been the first to harbour any form of intelligent life.

Cinos realised he was thinking too much as he waited in line for his turn, he should be ready to answer any questions put to him without hesitation.

Cinos had no money to hire a shuttle and the moment he'd set foot on the surface in his current state he'd be caught. All cameras everywhere had iris recognition technology, they could tell who you were depending on your retina scan and eye colour.

There was no chance of using coloured contact lenses as they were illegal and had all been destroyed to stop people avoiding the scanners, even shades were prohibited and even glasses when outdoors so the cameras could always spot you, indoors however when you're working was a different matter.

After wandering ankle deep in some muck one day Cinos peered through a vent shaft and that's when he saw the answer to his problems. There was an advert on a wall saying "See Space, join the Mobius Waste Management Team!" or MWMT for short.

Basically, after burning the sludge Cinos was wading through there was always rubbish at the end, useless black sludge that was of no use, so it was loaded into canisters, fired into space where they were collected by a garbage ship and hauled to the sun and dumped on its surface. But then the ships went to the far edge of the system and collected fuel waste from several other colony planets to return to Mobius to be burnt as more fuel.

It was the start of a plan, if he could get to the edge of the system at least maybe he could find a way out of the system altogether. That's why Cinos was standing in line, he was about to join the MWMT.

He sat down at a desk opposite a black jump suited individual, a heavily built dog with a long mussel, sharp eyes and a mean grin. Cinos kind of felt out of place being a scrawny little hedgehog, this guy could eat him for lunch. The glasses Cinos was wearing which magnified his eyes to twice their size didn't help either. Cinos had found them in the sewage dump and washed them down to use. He'd also dyed his fur a dull white using some kind of chemical so he wasn't recognisable, though it worked he did subconsciously wondered how many forms of cancer he was going to get off it, and he had his quills tired up into a pony tail like thingy at the back of his head. This was so he resembled more of the hedgehog who's chip he was using belonged to, the dead one.

"You're a little short for this work aren't you?" the man behind the desk said, a name tag on his uniform breast pocket read, Arnold Reed.

"I didn't realise there was a height requirement." Cinos said, and Reed grunted. Cinos had disguised his voice by wearing a breather, a device for heavy asthmatics that fed oxygen directly into his lungs so he could breath, Cinos didn't need it but it added to the disguise he was going for. Of course he'd found it in the waste pit so it still stank a little and made him sound like a villain from a sci-fi film whenever the device breathed for him, but it had advantages in that it hid his lower face and with filters it also filtered out the drugs in the atmosphere so he could think clearly. This look didn't look out of place in this area of Mobius anyway, this close to the garbage pits many people wore these things with filters to stop the stench getting through from the sewers to their noses but Cinos acted up the part of a dorky, asthmatic.

The dog took out a form from his desk and began writing on it filling in details. "Sur-Name" he suddenly asked.

Cinos quickly fished for a name, he couldn't use his real name –nor his alternative identities name- in case Robotnik somehow spotted it and decided to check it out. Nor could he use the identity of his chips original owner because he didn't know it, damn he should've planned ahead. Cinos said the first name that came to mind "Bla...ke" he'd meant to say Blade because it sounded cool, but changed tack when he realised it could give him away because it wasn't a usual ame. He almost said Blakes, with an S as in the Emperor but realised that might be too conspicuous as well so stopped short of the single S and so he became Blake.

"First name?"

Cinos was ready for this "Richard"

"Date of birth?"

"Feburary 2nd" Cinos said without hesitation, it was Lola's birthday. Wait, would that come back to haunt him he wondered? But it was too late to change his mind now.

"Year?"

"I'm 27 if that helps?" stupid answer, but Reed the Dog didn't appear to care and just scribbled a year on the form which from Cinos angle looked like it made him 50. This form filling must be a complete joke, the guy had even written his first name as Dick, making him Dick Blake which sounded like a private detective in a bad cop show. Hey wait a minute, Dick? Was this mutt insulting him?

Reed asked some other questions like why he wanted to join the company and so on. Then Cinos was weighed, and Cinos was alarmed to find out he had lost 2 stone and 3 pounds from being on the run for a number of weeks, he was already a scrawny thing he couldn't afford to lose much more weight. They also did an eye exam which Cinos pretend to be bad at once he'd gotten to the third line, giving credibility to his need for glasses. He memorised the letters with his glasses off in case the guy asked him to repeat it with his glasses on, but Reed didn't.

Reed then gave Cinos a six page document to read quietly in the corner which stated the terms and conditions, he was then to sign both the form Reed had filled out and the six page document to seal the deal.

Not to make himself seem too keen Cinos sat down and read the document. It was long, drawn out rubbish and legal stuff he didn't understand, within two paragraphs though he was reading it though none of it was going in and eventually he gave up altogether.

Suddenly there was a light flooding into the recruitment centre. Cinos peered out to see a drone peering in, scanning every ones' eyes. Cinos' blood froze, if it recognised him he was done for. The seconds ticked by like they were minutes and he was aware his heart was thudding madly in his chest as the robot collected data on all of them. He was sure it would recognise him and an alarm would be set off, security forces would surround him and Cinos would be dragged off to have his mind wiped again.

But no alarm came, the drone shut off its search light and continued on its way. Was a silent alarm tripped or didn't the drone recognise him?

Cinos returned to reading the document which was still boring and dull but he was still on edge waiting for trouble. He'd been sitting there for two more minutes when he realised he wasn't wearing his glasses and quickly put them on. He hated these things because they hurt his eyes but they were necessary to remain undetected.

After signing the documents Cinos was officially part of the garbage hauling business MWMT or the 'Gung brigade' as they were more commonly known. As Cinos walked back to his little hidey hole in the sewers he looked around waiting for security guards or Swatbots to swarm down and wrestle him to the ground. But none came.

Cinos scratched his head, this was odd, usually these drones were 100% accurate so why hadn't they found him? He got his answer after he passed a shop with tinted windows that made them a two way mirror, they could see out but you couldn't see in. Cinos did a double take and peered at his own reflection. He looked stupid with his dull white fur, quills tied behind the back of his head and glasses that made him look like a nerd but what interested him were his eyes. He blinked thinking what he was seeing was a trick of the light, but the difference remained the same.

Through the glasses that magnified his eyes to three times their original size Cinos noticed his eyes had changed colour! They'd gone from his usual jet black to a very dark hazel. Cinos had noticed when he saw Sonics image projected at him weeks ago that Sonic had emerald green eyes. Where his eyes changing back to how they were before the memory wipe? He removed the glasses from his face and pocketed them thinking maybe he wouldn't need them but still decided to hang on to them just in case. The glasses were annoying anyway, while wearing them he would sometimes bump into people because his vision through the glasses was so terrible, but people just thought he was drunk.

Was Sonic coming back? He wondered when he found a quiet, shady spot to sit down. Would Cinos wake up one day and remember everything, remember being that free spirit Sonic the Hedgehog? But then Cinos thought, what would happen to him, Cinos the person, would he just cease to exist? The person who was now suffering because Sonic had slipped up? Erased to make room for some cocky little teenager personality that sounded to him like he was an irritating, little, antisocial brat?

Cinos waited before opening a small access shoot and leaping back down into the sewers and landed with a splash in the wet sewage.

Cinos was certain he could get along fine if Sonic stayed out of the picture all together, the cocky little rat had had his chance at life and he'd blew it. But at the same time Cinos also wanted to feel free, Sonic just seemed to embody freedom in Cinos' mind as well. He could go anywhere he pleased, he didn't care what others thought of him and through fragmented memories in his mind it felt like he knew how to enjoy himself. Cinos couldn't possibly feel that now and he desperately wanted to feel that sense of freedom for himself, even just to taste it.

But maybe Cinos wouldn't cease to exist, if Sonic did come back he'd retain the memories of Cinos and a persons' personality was made up of memories that influenced how they behaved. Would he became a Cinos/Sonic hydride personality? Would his older, more experienced self make Sonic step back and plan things through carefully before racing into danger? It was Sonic's recklessness that caused him to be caught and have his memory erased in the first place. It's all well and good fighting for a just cause, but when you were outgunned and out matched there was no shame in running to fight another day, after all once you're dead, you're dead and then you're of no use to anyone, and because Sonic had slipped up this world had come into being.

Suddenly Cinos' face drooped as realisation dawned on him, he felt cold and he could feel himself going into shock as a penny had just dropped and with a horribly loud clang.

It was his fault, it was all his fault, the empire, Dr. Robotnik's rise to power, Lola's death, the death of all those people in the under cities, this nightmare they were living in, it was all his fault because his other self had been so cocky and selfish! His younger self just wanted to help people he realised that but his pride, his inability to back down from a challenge he knew he couldn't win, his arrogance in thinking whatever the challenge he would always come out on top like he had a guardian angel making sure everything would be alright, his selfish desire to enjoy himself in dangerous situations, all of it that seemed to personify Sonic, and it all meant it was Sonic who had caused all of this and that meant it was also Cinos' fault too.

Cinos screamed into his head, a scream so large that it threatened to break out of his head and exit through his mouth as a real scream but he held it in so as not to make a scene in public so instead he grabbed his pony tail of quills and pulled on them hard as if by inflicting pain on himself he could make the fragments of Sonic in his head feel pain. His eyes began to water as the pressurised scream released itself through pain. Then Cinos crumbled to the floor in his dark hideout and started weeping.

Though he wept he also felt a fresh bout of red hot anger, this time aimed at another person he now loathed just as much as Robotnik. He hated Sonic, it was all Sonics' fault! Which meant it was all Cinos' fault. So it meant it was all 'his' fault...

Cinos just buried his face in his hands and continued to weep.

* * *

The mighty Emperor Tim Blakes if possible felt even worse. They had been looking for Cinos for a good couple of weeks and so far they'd found nothing, no trace, it was as if Cinos had magically managed to drop off the planet all together. Tim was fairly sure if they couldn't track him or find him using iris recognition systems then he must be dead. He can't get food without using the chip in his hand, in fact once he appears on the grid his chip would show where he was unless of course he'd dug it out of his hand but then he would never be able to find food. All this meant that if Cinos so much as looked at light from the city he'd be detected.

They even had patrol-bots scouring the under city looking for him, so far they'd turned up nothing, he was certain the spiky rat was dead but Robotnik wouldn't have any of it unless Cinos' body was delivered to him, until they found Cinos dead then they were to treat this situation as if Cinos was still alive.

Robotnik had hit him hard for his failure, he'd taken a great deal of money out of his account. It was all done on computers so all he had to do was shift a decimal point in a computer and Tim's life savings, pilfered when he dips into the Empires budget was over night worth from 42.2 billion to just 40.2 billion, he was worth 2 billion less then he was the other day and there would be no record the account ever contained more than it actually had. He didn't know where the money went, only that it was missing.

This made Tim realise how much control Robotnik had over him. With a click of a button Robotnik could turn him from Emperor of the Mobian Empire right down to a penniless, homeless person. He'd be ruined and it would be about that time he'd put a bullet in his brain.

Tim had thought however that he had outsmarted Robotnik because he had 2 billion in cash in a safe in his private penthouse in the Imperial Tower. Only when he arrived he'd found the safe open and everything was gone, everything. Later that night he was horrified to realise where that money had gone, the news had reported that Cinos was on the run and was extremely dangerous and that 'he', Tim Blakes the Emperor had offered a 2 billion reward to any who captured him.

Tim had realised that if he upset Robotnik again and didn't catch Cinos chances are the scientist would destroy him financially. Tim drummed his fingers together nervously. Each day he noticed more and more of his hard stolen money was going missing from his account, with each day his account became more and more empty. Within a month he'd be broke! Within a couple of weeks he'd have to cut back on stuff like his heated swimming pool or his weekend trips to the vacation planet Flourana, things he didn't want to think about.

"Has he been found yet?!" Robotnik said as the monitor popped up out of his desk again.

"No Robotnik, he's still not showing up!" Tim said, he realised he looked like a troubled man and pleaded with Robotnik to stop siphoning off money from his own account to add to the reward money.

"If you want me to stop, find him!" Robotnik said flatly.

"But he hasn't shown up on any scanner, he must be dead. The computers haven't detected his presence at all!" Tim argued, knowing with every second that Robotnik wasn't appeased with good news his account became more and more empty.

"You have all the security forces scanning for Cinos biodata?" Robotnik asked darkly as if this was a stupid thing to do.

"Of course, how else do we find him?" Tim asked as he started to shake.

"Refine your search" Robotnik ordered "Check for how many sightings of 'unknowns' you have."

"What?" Tim asked quizzically. An unknown was someone who's iris scan or biodata didn't match anyone in their records, the only way to fool biodata or iris scan was to change your own eyes, a process which resulted in the patient going blind and even if Cinos did this he'd need a doctor and to get a doctor he'd need to go into the open where he'd be picked up immediately. Not only was the idea a bad one it was stupid.

"Do it!" Robotnik ordered. Tim did as he was asked, he brought up a list of iris scans over the past two days, there were billions so Tim narrowed the search to any whos scans didn't correlate to anyone. But this was impossible, Cinos was registered, everyone was registered, there were no pair of eyes on this planet or in the entire empire that weren't registered.

After a couple of seconds of shifting through the data he got a result. At first he saw nothing, but then his blood froze when there was one single listing of 'unknown Iris Scan person unknown' there was someone on the planet who did not exist in official records!

He brought up a picture of who this person was. A dull white looking creature with dark green eyes, a rebreather on, a pair of glasses in his hands and his quills tied back into a pony tail, but the thing that really made Tim excited was that he was a hedgehog, more so he was wearing a pair of red shoes, buckled with the white strap that Cinos wore the last time Tim had seen him!

"You have a hit?" Robotnik asked

"Yes, a hedgehog!" Tim said excitedly. After scanning the hedgehog his iris would've automatically been entered into a database and tracked. He tracked the hedgehog and found out he'd gone back down into the under levels. "And we've got him!"

Tim relaxed. In a couple of hours they'd have Cinos back in his clutches and soon everything will be back to normal.

"Don't congratulate yourself yet" Robotnik said "You could've snagged Sonic several times and each time he escapes your net before you can close it. Your track record so far doesn't inspire me with much confidence. If you fail again I'll appoint someone more suitable to this task and you will pay the price."

The screen went blank again. Tim was suddenly shaking again, his cushy life was under threat and by a stupid little rodent who wouldn't conform to the rest of society. When he gets his hands on this little rat he'll erase his memory himself and he'll have the machines beams turned on so brightly it'll burn the rats brain out and turn him into a vegetable so he couldn't cause him any financial trouble again.

* * *

When the security forces arrived and began combing the lower levels in Metaltropolises they were two days too late. Cinos had gone, he'd finally been given a birth on a garbage ship and was currently over a hundred miles above Mobius' surface.

Cinos peering out of the viewport of the shuttle he was on and he could see the ship he'd be spending the next few weeks on. It was one ugly looking thing, it looked like one of those tubes you'd store tennis balls inside. The stern housed the bridge and the engines, the bow had a ring with claws to help manoeuvre large garbage pods into it, it looked like a giant maw of a mythical sea creature and the mid sections of the ship didn't exist except for three arms that snaked away from the edge of the bow to join at the stern. Between these arms were three large spheres, garbage pods five times the size of Robotropolises itself, smaller craft guided these pods into the ships that were first fired into space and then collected to be fed into this larger ships maw to be swallowed by the bow and to be stored in the mid section until they were jettisoned into the sun. It was painted a rusting, brown colour or the colour of poo someone in the seat behind him crudely said. This massive, ten mile long craft was called Black Hole.

The ship didn't look aerodynamic, it was built in space, for space and there was no air in space so a space ship could be any shape or size you wanted because they were never designed to land on or enter the atmosphere of a planet. If they tried the ship would just collapse into itself because its skeleton wasn't strong enough to survive a planets strong gravity. At least that's what someone jabbering in the seat behind Cinos was saying but Cinos wasn't really listening nor was he that interested.

Ships like this weren't capable of hyperspace as they were never supposed to leave the system, their purpose was to transport things to the sun, dump them then turn back, go to other colonies in the local system to collect burnable garbage then return back to Mobius. Hyperdrive was reserved for passenger transport ships, interstellar cargo carriers and the imperial space navy, hyperdrive was expensive so why waste it on cargo and garbage ships travelling in system, a journey that usually takes the best part of a year.

Cinos looked out of the window and saw the blue marble of Mobius receding into the distance, getting smaller and smaller. His home, the place where he was born and the place he'd assume he'd die, but now he had the feeling he was destined to die in space, on his own and alone fighting a force he couldn't hope to defeat.

Perhaps there were some rebels out there that would take him in, allow him to help their fight against this monstrosity of an empire Robotnik had created. All he knew was that if Robotnik managed to get his hands on him again then he wouldn't have to worry about being Sonic or Cinos anymore, because he'd be neither, memory wiped clean again then what would Robotnik do with him? Program a new personality or decide he was too dangerous and turn him into a vegetable? Maybe he'd even go so far as to actually kill him this time.

To the side of Mobius, orbiting around like a second moon was the Death Egg. Cinos was staring at the one place where he knew Robotnik was, the puppet master for the empire was onboard that giant space station. Cinos wished he could reach out, grab it and crush it, to him it had turned into a symbol of Robotnik's tyranny and he wanted the overweight, planet sized, mass of blubber with the stupid moustache to pay for everything.

As the shuttle craft accelerated closer towards the MWMT vessel Black Hole, Cinos stared out of the porthole at the Death Egg, trying to see if he could spot Robotnik in one of those tiny windows and as if trying to communicate through telepathy Cinos thought a message, a simple three letter sentence that carried a lot of his rage and anger, and warned Robotnik never to let his guard drop for even a second because no matter how long it took, one day...

'_...I'm coming back!'_

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**To Be Continued...**

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**Authors notes:** Wow, a lots happened in this chapter hasn't it?

I'd really appreciate anyone who could give me more reviews of this story so I know how well it's being received.

I've made Cinos hate his original Sonic identity for many reasons, mostly to add an extra layer to the character, imagine finding out your mind is an invention and that your personality would probably eventually be overridden to make room for someone who –in your mind- thought he was better then you and more important, you'd be pretty upset too.

Hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter

Cheers


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